The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1887-03-30
From Observation.

Having for many years lived in a farming
community, myself farmers wife, and be-
coming acquainted with my neighbors as
only those become acquainted who live
among the hills divided into farms of every
description, hasten to give your readers
the result of my observations. There is no
occupation that a man can engage in where
the wife can be of so much real help, or, on
the contrary, of so great hindrance. There
is an old saying that "a woman can throw
out more with spoon than man can
throw in with a shovel" and there are
thousand little economies that only farmers
wife understands, which, if practiced, help
long way toward success; and such things
are very hard to teach hired help unaccus-
toned to framework. Most of our farms
were purchased by men who had not the
money to pay the whole cost, consequently
the average farmer has to endure the worry
OF debt and the constant pressure of the
load of interest which must be paid every
year, and this is perhaps the first cause of
overwork for both men and women The
farmer who wishes to hire for the season or
for year rarely finds much trouble in find
good helps but most of us do not feel the
need of help more than a few weeks at any
one time, and our Vermont girls are not
strong enough to go about doing the hardest
part of the work, and we do not take kindly
to foreign help There may be times when
the burning of green wood for few days
seems almost a necessity, but perhaps it
will be gratifying to newspaper writers to
learn that Vermont farmers are too careful
OF their expenses to allow the use of green
wood when it takes just third more than
it would of dry. There is no hardship in
knowing how to milk COW or harness
horse; and as for the garden, if women, in
the cool shade OF after-supper hours, will
take hoe and work about and watch the
vegetables half as much as some OF the vii
layers cultivate their flower plots, they will
ma rest and charm about il that only out
door air and exercise will give. / do not
believe in sons that sit on the fence and
rest watching their mothers. If there are
any such Qet me say it softly those same
mothers may consider themselves in part
to blame. Somewhere there are grave faults
in their early training. Concerning the
labor-saving devices, would call your atten-
ton to our houses built long before such
inventions We're ever thought Of You will
see at once that there are no rooms to be
set apart for laundry or bathroom, and GER
tainly we do not wish stationary wash-tubs
in the small kitchens one generally finds in
the common farmhouse. | do not believe
there are many farmers possessing the
means to build new houses who would omit
any of the modern improvements that would
tighten the labor or promote the comfort or
health OF his family. | know there are
brutes (perhaps no more among farmers
than among any other class of mem, and if
| considered it my duty to live with such an
one would much prefer to live among the
mountains, where there would be as few as
possible to know my trouble. | could refer
to the past and compare the present with
the olden time, and the cares of farmers
wife with those of other working-women (;